


Loose the Fateful Lightning

by hitlikehammers



Series: The World We Forge Unending [6]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And Fuck Anyone Else's Agenda, Bucky Barnes Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Going to War as Brand New Men, Healing, M/M, On The Brink of War, Post-Black Panther (2018), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Infinity War, Protective Steve Rogers, Schmoop, Steve Rogers (Starts To) Get His Groove Back, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers and the Hard-Won Autonomy to Protect What He Loves, Supersoldiers in Love, The Power of the Endless Timeless Unbound Kind of Love and Whatnot, Welcome to the Vibranium Capital of the World, taking comfort in each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 12:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14425398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/pseuds/hitlikehammers
Summary: War is coming, like they've never seen before.But together: they're ready.NOSPOILERS FORINFINITY WAR.





	Loose the Fateful Lightning

**Author's Note:**

> Today is _INFINITY WAR DAY_. And so ends this little mini-companion-in-the-middle series, with the most important bit of the whole thing, start to finish: Bucky and Steve. Together.
> 
> As ever: if you want to start at the _very_ beginning of the tale, post _Civil War_ : [No End To This Thing](http://archiveofourown.org/series/455365)
> 
> If you want to follow some Steve/Bucky learning to feel safe(ish) and heal and be _together_ in Wakanda, pre- _Infinity War_ , as well as having deep meaningful conversations/deep meaningful snark-battles with Shuri, Nakia, and T'Challa: [The World We Forge Unending](http://archiveofourown.org/series/892896).
> 
> Love, as ever, to [weepingnaiad](http://archiveofourown.org/users/weepingnaiad), for beta'ing like a star, as ever, and just for being an amazing human at large.
> 
> Title credit [here](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/11/the-battle-hymn-of-the-republic-americas-song-of-itself/66070/).

Steve’s getting used to being surprised, these days.

Except, well, that doesn’t make sense, does it? Being surprised in the first place kind of depends on the _surprise_ part, right? Or something.

Maybe it’s more that Steve is getting ever more accustomed to the seismic shifts, the massive 180s—getting used to seeing the world anew because his lens has shifted, and they’d fixed his vision just fine in the 40’s but what he knows now, how he feels _now_ is everything he never could have thought to miss, is every rib loosed and every chamber of his heart stretched to bursting in such a perfect sort of way that Steve doesn’t know the words for, only knows the delicious, unnameable feeling of it and how he won’t ever accept a world again without it, without the wonder and the beauty and the terror of vulnerability but the worth in it, for how deep the love can reach when he’s that open, when he leaves his souls to be held in hands that value him beyond all reason, more than he could ever value himself. 

And that’s it, isn’t it? That’s it _exactly_ : this sudden shift in the idea of where he fits in the world— _that_ he fits in the world, and fits warm and safe and treasured enough to treasure and keep safe in kind as he’s always wanted to, always _dreamed_ —Steve’s gone into battle believing in a cause, fighting the good fight and loving something _fierce_ , loving bigger than his body could hold no matter how big that body was but Steve was willing to lay down his life with nothing to lose and everything to give, because his love was a given, a thing he’d held close without sharing fully, not the _soul_ of it, for any number of reasons and so to leave, to sacrifice and never see morning again was just what he’d always known, but instead of his body betraying him in the doing, it’d be given to something bigger. It’d be offered to something sacred that _could_ keep the thing he loved most safe, maybe, even if just for one more breath because—

Because one breath is _everything_ , when it belongs to James Buchanan Barnes.

But it’s different, now. It’s different in that when the love he’s always held like a mantle and a weight across his ribs fans out and colors the whole of him, shines in his touch and gazes back at him full force from the eyes he’d sell his heart to drown in: it’s different because when it’s concentrated and doesn’t have to hide, the same unbearable, immeasurable love got magnified, and when it was given to him just the same, but as big and just as sure, it was fucking _blinding_. And Steve’s made as much peace as he can, as suspects he ever will, with the lie of the ‘good fight’, and the impossible, inevitable ambiguity of what it means to sacrifice, but he will lay down his life for the greater good, and for one thing in particular without regret, and that’s still the same: Bucky, only _Bucky_ —but here’s the thing.

Steve never cared if he didn’t get to see morning, so long as others got to greet the sunrise instead. But now?

Now, Steve’s not just fighting with this nebulous knowledge of being in love, no; Steve is fighting and he is loved _back_ , and _his_ mornings are tangled limbs and warm bodies and steady hearts in the dawn and Steve wants them. Good _god_ , Steve wants them, and he’s afraid that one wrong step, or else, one _right_ step in a dance he’s become so used to it’s rote, a dance where he doesn’t mind if he falls because what’s being lost, really, that outweighs the gains of whatever he was trying to do, or hoping to save: Steve is goddamn _terrified_ that he’s too used to throwing himself into the fight because for so very long, the fight was the only thing he could count on coming back to him, _giving_ back to him, because he was an idiot, they were both idiots maybe and they never said, never _knew_ —

Steve shakes with it down to the marrow in his _bones_ , because for the first time, he has something to fight for that’s so much stronger. For the first time, he has someone to _live_ for, that’s so much more necessary. For the first time, Steve has someone who would miss him, would might break like Steve himself would break if he lost him.

For the first time, Steve _wants_ to see a new day once the battle is done, and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

Steve sighs as hands settle, steady and strong on his shoulders as a familiar, beloved pair of lips brush against his ear:

“You alright, punk?”

Steve suppresses a shiver—now’s not the time—but he does lean a little into Bucky’s waiting frame because, he’s not sure what he is, not sure how he feels, but he’s sure of Bucky, and Steve knows how he feels when it comes to _him_.

So he breathes in, and closes his eyes; breathes out, and feels Bucky’s hands move firm against his shoulder blades, his neck slow and careful, kneading tension from the muscles and then deeper, because the hands are Bucky’s, and it’s always somehow deeper when it comes to him.

“I’m,” Steve starts, but the words are both a whirlwind and dam: he can’t grasp any one of them fully, and they’re all locked behind his tongue somehow, threatening to tear him apart except—

Except it’s Bucky’s hands on him, and Bucky’s breath at his ear, and Steve thinks even that can draw a few words out, can relieve enough of the pressure to keep it all from flaying him alive.

“It’s just strange,” Steve says, finally, voice breathier, lighter and more lost than he means but less so than he feels: “Different.” As if that’s all it is, or as if that _fits_ all that it _is_ —

“It’s okay.”

And somehow, that’s it—two words from Bucky’s mouth at the pounding pulse at Steve’s neck understand him entirely, and Steve knows this because that mouth just stays there, lips pressed but never moving, less a kiss than a foothold, a touchstone, a promise to keep and be kept and that’s what Steve’s taking into this war, that’s what Steve’s fighting to the death in the name of, that’s what Steve will not bear living through the loss of, but more than that, the _difference_ :

That’s what Steve can’t stand the thought of never holding again _himself_. And Bucky, pressing the shape of his lips to Steve’s runaway heart, somehow feels like knowing, between them both, that somewhere along the line Steve managed so many impossible things, more than transforming a body or saving the world, no.

No, Steve got his heart _back_ against all odds, against life and death and the man who brought it with him and put it back in Steve’s chest is there to hold it, to keep it where it belongs between them when it tries to break free, when Steve’s mind reels and his blood rages and his world threatens to crack, but more than even that.

Steve got his heart back and learned not just to love with it, wholly and beyond what he ever thought he’d know—but Steve learned to love his own heart, learned _it_ needed safe keeping, and there was value in it, in _him_ , somehow, and yes the word _selfish_ rears its head more often than it doesn’t but it’s followed, now, with the feather-memory of touch and heat and feeling and fullness and beauty that’s never too far away, that’s by his side and in his veins and in loving Bucky Barnes away from the world and its hate, in finding solace and sanctuary and camaraderie and hope in new friends and in the new discovery that the fight didn’t have to be all there was, or the only way to safeguard the rest, or to measure its worth, _his_ worth: here.

Here, he has learned that the things his heart beats for have value, and that’s enough to fight for. And they have value, because _he_ decides they do. Because _he_ needs them, and will not suffer living without.

And that fucking matters. That’s more than _enough_.

Steve’s breath shakes as it all rolls over him, through him, and Bucky’s mouth doesn’t leave his throat once, even as his heart’s started to calm.

“How’d you know?” he whispers, and Bucky huffs into his skin, disbelieving.

“ _Really_?”

And okay, fine, stupid question. Asking Bucky how he knew anything about Steve was more like asking why the sky was blue or the world was round: that’s just the way it’s always been, and always would be. 

“Right,” Steve nods and reaches up to thread a hand in Bucky’s hair and just let himself feel, and breathe, and _feel_.

It’s a luxury he relishes; it’s a thing that cries out deep in him and resonates and he moves just enough to lead Bucky’s open mouth from his neck to his lips and to kiss him so fucking deep, it would shatter than both if they were anything less, if they _loved_ any less.

“You were never afraid,” Bucky pants a little, when they break apart, his left hand splayed on Steve’s chest, and Steve’s thrown for a minute as to what it means, because wherever it’s going that’s not fucking _true_ , but then: 

“I was always afraid.”

Bucky looks up to him, and that, Steve thinks, is how Bucky knew everything in Steve without Steve saying a word, because Steve reads everything in Bucky at just a glance: this is how they know.

This is how _Bucky_ knew, and now Steve breathes it in, just the same.

“I fought because I couldn’t live with the things I feared coming true,” Bucky murmurs, cupping Steve’s rough jaw. “And I know you, your body,” his left hand trails down his abs for a moment; “your breath,” and his touch slides up one side of Steve’s torso until that very breath hitches, and Bucky deigns the hint of a smile:

“Your heart,” and the hand’s back where it started, and Steve’s pulse is deep, now: steadier, neither fast nor slow but resonant, _fuller_ , shivery with bass and boldness and an unwavering mantra, an unstoppable command:

_This is mine, this is mine, this is mine_.

“It’s different, now,” Bucky catches his gaze and strokes the line of his face: “you’re allowed to feel different.”

Steve chuckles, a little hollow, at that: once again, _different_ seems like such an empty word, for how little it grasps.

“Everything’s changed,” Steve breathes, leaning in to Bucky’s touch.

“Not everything,” Bucky reminds him knowingly, and Steve reaches to cover Bucky’s hand with his own, first at his cheek, and then at his chest.

“No,” Steve agrees, because he trusts, he _knows_ Bucky understands all the things that test the word, that betray the word, that have changed and will never be the same, and yet this one thing that matters, this one thing that makes anything else possible to change at all.

“Not everything,” Steve turns and kisses Bucky’s thumbprint where it splays at the corner of his mouth, and no.

Everything else, maybe, but not _this_.

“We’ll be okay,” Bucky kisses his forehead and then bows their heads together just to breathe, and to hold.

“Buck—”

“This isn’t like it used to be,” Bucky cuts him off, tone open but eager, firm. “We’re going into this like, new men, almost. Untested, the way we are now, the way we...” 

Bucky trails off, and his eyes leave Steve for the first time to take in the city, the rolling plains and hills beyond readying for battle from the vantage point where they stand on one of the palace balconies, fresh from yet another a strategy meeting, because they’re going to stand and fight, they’re going to fight in a war that’s shaping up to be bigger than aliens or red skulls, brainwashing or floating cities—they’re gearing up to fight in a bigger war than any they’ve ever fought before.

Save maybe for the ones they’ve fought for each other; for themselves.

“Banners, I think,” Bucky says, gaze still far away, somewhere beyond the horizon line but steady, his lips quirked just a little—ironic, maybe. Soft, but wry. 

“I feel like it was a long, hard lesson to learn, to say the least, but,” Bucky huffs without any humor, but with so much heart as he reaches, and takes Steve’s palm in his own, tracing the open hand down and across each line and crease and bone.

“But we let banners and colors and the will of others define us for too fuckin’ long, Stevie,” Bucky exhales, fingers outlining the full shape of Steve’s hands and lilting over the pulse in his wrist. 

“There’s nothing here,” he slips a hand to the panels of Steve’s uniform over his abs, where his breath catches and the monochrome stripes shiver under Bucky’s touch. 

“Or here,” Bucky brings Steve’s hand to Bucky’s left upper arm: bereft of red: “that decides for us, because finally _we_ get to decide, because _we_ know what matters, and—”

“ _This_ is what’s painted there.”

And Bucky’s own open palm lands firm on the center of Steve’s chest over a star that’s there less for any symbolism, no here and now, but more for function, for protection of the pumping underneath and then Bucky grabs Steve’s hand and grasps it hard and heavy to the same space on Bucky’s own chest, firm as he holds Steve’s gaze with unfathomable feeling:

“And what’s held _here_ , closest to,” he presses Steve’s hold even closer, and Steve’s never been more convinced, more _sure_ of the god’s-honest truth ; that the only thing he was ever _really_ made for, was to become worthy of the heart he’s been offered, the only thing he wants and needs and feels so very _right_ in fighting for, striving for, and earning beyond what he deserves in his unworthy hands, but still _held_ :

“Plain as day.”

And Steve can’t help it: he reaches and he frames Bucky’s face and the way he kisses him, he hopes to _god_ —any possible one that could be listening, watching, and imbuing what he is and what he does with _anything_ at all—but he hopes that the way he ravages Bucky’s mouth and seeks as deep as he can with his tongue like he can find the taste of Bucky’s goddamn _soul_ inside—

He hopes that Bucky knows Steve’s own heart’s in his hands as real, as true, as honest and unbreakable and unrepentant and so very soaked with _trust_ , as much as Bucky could ever give to Steve’s unwieldy hold in turn.

“More now than it ever was,” Bucky speaks against Steve’s lips, wet and breathless; “than it’s ever been.” 

And he pulls back, despite Steve’s whimper, as he braces against Steve’s shoulders and holds him just far enough to look him clear in the eye, but still feel his breathing, still bask in their shared heat. 

“This is you fighting, this is you fuckin’, just, _soaring_ , I—,” Bucky’s voice breaks, and he shakes his head, and Steve’s going to break alongside that word, for how much he feels, for how much he goddamn _loves_.

“This is you living, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, leaning to press a single kiss to the point of Steve’s jaw and Steve trembles, and he melts, and he is Bucky’s entirely, and he will be until he is dust and if dust is what’s coming for them, when whatever’s approaching finally arrives? Then he will leave this form as Bucky’s. He will breathe his last as Bucky’s.

But god _damnit_ , he refuses to come to dust when he can come to hold this man, to kiss this man, to lose himself within this man and for this man to lose himself in him: he won’t have it.

And Steve Rogers? He’s a stubborn sonuvabitch, or so he’s been told. The universe is going to have to try something unthinkable to tear him from the promise of Bucky in his life, in his bed, in his heart, as his world.

He won’t fucking _have_ it.

“This is your god’s-honest truth and god _damnit_ ,” Bucky says with so much conviction that Steve falls in love impossibly deeper, just for the tone of those words; “but don’t you doubt it for a single second.”

And hell. If Steve doubted that his heart has long-since settled in Bucky’s own chest, his soul in Bucky’s body somehow for feeling and wanting and willing and need: this is the impossible proof, because that’s everything.

That’s _it_.

“I didn’t bring the shield.” 

Bucky’s lips quirk, imperceptible to anyone else, but Steve doesn't mind whatever amuses him, whatever small secret he might be hiding because Steve’s life surprises him, these days, and he’s learned not to mind—not when he trusts something so deep as this, as them.

“Don’t think you’ll need it?”

“Don’t think it belongs there,” Steve answers, quicker than he might have expected even minutes ago, really; because the reason, the reality is somehow shockingly clear—that gift of love, from Bucky, from their friends in making—it has no place on the battlefield they’re headed for. 

Steve brings enough love with him on his own, anyway. 

“And I,” Steve breathes out, and pulls Bucky to him so their chests rise and fall in tandem, counterpoint, complement, _perfect_ :

“ _We’ve_ got each other,” Steve says, with unutterable belief in its truth despite everything, despite the universe and the vicissitudes of chance and circumstance, good and evil, love and death and life and time: they are here, together. 

“And we decide what matters,” Steve grips tighter at Bucky’s hips, a statement and a promise and a heartbeat he can time: “and we will be okay.”

Because they will, they _will_ , and Steve’s pulse rumbles as it overflows, as it’s timed as clearly under his fingertip dug into Bucky’s skin, as it screams and prays and dares the universe unending:

_This is mine, this is mine, this is mine, you will not touch it_.

_And hell or heaven help you if try._

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://hitlikehammers.tumblr.com).


End file.
